It’s been a long two years since we’ve heard from ZICO, but at long last he’s back, along with five new tracks.

Grown Ass Kid features the hip-hop roots of ZICO’s earlier solo work while also tying in some of his poppier tracks (as well as a hint of Block B vibes). In terms of post-military enlistment releases I expected to hear from him, this isn’t anything like I was expecting; in fact, it’s better than anything I could’ve possibly imagined.

As is the standard for any ZICO release, he wrote, composed, and arranged all five tracks alongside Poptime, Ryo, no2zcat, and Zior Park. There are three ZICO-only tracks (pre-release “SEOUL DRIFT,” title track “Freak,” and “OMZ freestyle”), with the remaining two tracks being features, with CHANGMO on third track “Trash Talk” and Zior Park on closing track “Nocturnal animals.” 

Pre-Release Track “SEOUL DRIFT”

Ahead of the release for Grown Ass Kid, ZICO released “SEOUL DRIFT” along with the music video. The tempo is upbeat, leaning more into his pop stylings. That said, the subject matter of the lyrics is the opposite (think of how happy his hit song “Any song” is in terms of beat versus the sentiments he expresses in the actual lyrics).

The opening lyrics of “SEOUL DRIFT” seem to coincide with his absence during his mandatory enlistment during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially apparent in the lines, “Bring it back / Two Christmas Eves,”* and, “Just a red X on the problematic calendar.”* “SEOUL DRIFT” is definitely a party-adjacent track, wishing for listeners to “drift, drift, drift, drift, drift away” from their every-day problems, and the music video is every bit as addicting as the song.

Embrace Your Inner “Freak”

Flipping the script, title track “Freak” sees ZICO embracing a slightly different hip-hop sound, but it’s still 100% him. It still has his rapid-fire rap verses while also offering bits of his singing. There’s something about the track that feels very much like a Block B track; it could’ve been featured on one of their albums and fit in perfectly, almost a sister track to “Shall We Dance.” The lyrics are all about embracing your inner freak, the things that set you apart from everybody else, whether it’s the end of the world or not.

As somebody who is not only a huge fan of Block B and ZICO but also of apocalypse-centered media (with a heavy emphasis on zombies), the music video for “Freak” is the perfect culmination of almost everything I love. The video opens with a breaking news alert, with the broadcaster announcing that the world will end in 24 hours. ZICO is sitting in a living room alongside a group of friends, each one reacting differently to the news. While he doesn’t seem as outwardly freaked as the others, ZICO follows them out the door and onto the streets where the citizens of South Korea are attacking each other–not in a zombie way unfortunately, just lots of fist fights.

ZICO stands surrounded by the chaos, with some of his friends running while others take the opportunity to try and trend on social media. Phones come out and cameras start recording, a visual reference to the lyrics, “Republic of Korea, this is the final destination of your algorithm.”* In our current world, where everybody is trying to do the same things, be the same people, and fighting each other online for the sake of social media virality, is it any different to the apocalypse setting ZICO presents in “Freak”?

After the end of the world has come and passed, ZICO stands as the lone survivor. While there may be motionless bodies surrounding him and buildings destroyed and on fire, ZICO remains unphased, showing that it’s the freaks, the people who choose to be themselves no matter what, who will outlast the algorithm.

*Lyric translations from YouTube video captions.